


Heartsong, Sea

by winterlogic



Category: Subnautica (Video Game)
Genre: Alterra Sucks, Angst, Canon Exists but I do what I Want, Fluff, Infection, Kinda Existentialist, Kissing, M/M, Muteness, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Polyamory, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterlogic/pseuds/winterlogic
Summary: Tiny, fluorescent dots have popped up on Ryley’s hands and arms and feet and legs, growing bigger every day, and he realizes this is the beginning of the end.He’s visited every old base his PDA could point out to him, but Bart Torgal had never found the cure.Just one can survive, but it takes three to live.
Relationships: Avery Quinn/Ryley Robinson/Bart Torgal
Comments: 2
Kudos: 85





	1. Sand

**Author's Note:**

> Hey what’s up I’m back with more trash.
> 
> This is inspired by ryttu3k‘s _Exhale_ bc their writing had me shook and also bc Subnautica’s ending had me feeling things okay?
> 
> This will be based on my own extended 62-hour playthough bc the ocean was scary (IOW, canon whomst?)

It’s been seven weeks now, at least by the count of rough tally marks he has scratched into the sleek habitat wall.

Ryley watches the sun ease past the horizon for the hundredth time. It moves a lot faster than the sun of earth, or at least, he thinks it does. It’s been so long. In silence (always, always silence now), he slips back through the lifepod hatch and drops heavily into the uncomfortable launch chair.

He should really give the lifepod up, he knows. The fabricator and radio have been disassembled and moved to his small habitat nearby, the solar cells are starting to need maintenance, there’s nothing in the storage box— but it feels like his last true link to the Aurora, to Alterra, to _home_ , even with all the supplies and posters and blueprints he’d raided from the Aurora’s remains.

Slowly, Ryley pulls off one of his gloves and bends his stiff, aching fingers in and out. The infection his scanner has been indicating for couple of weeks now is already taking hold. If he’d had any voice left to speak with, he would’ve laughed. Because all the aliens— reapers and warpers and stalkers and bone sharks— aren’t enough. Even if he lives, he will die.

There’s also a curve of reddened, mostly-healed puncture marks from yesterday’s sand shark attack that disappear under the sleeve of his dive suit. Alterra’s med-kits are incredible, but not perfect.

It looks like Ryley will be staying up this night as well. He’s always in need of more titanium.

\--~~--

It’s dark, and Ryley can hear the skittering of rogue cave crawlers in the bushes nearby, but all of that is nothing compared to the PDA he holds in shaking fingers, listening to the last words of the last human in the godforsaken place over and over and over again.

_Bart Torgal_

Ryley feels tears slipping soundlessly down his salt-crusted cheeks, losing precious water, but he cannot stop them. His shipmates are gone, lost at sea, or eaten, or blown up, or worse. _He_ will die the same way as this Bart Torgal, he knows, he knows, wasting away on this beautiful, terrible planet until he too joins it forever.

\--~~--

Tiny, fluorescent dots have popped up on Ryley’s hands and arms and feet and legs, growing bigger every day, and he realizes this is the beginning of the end.

He’s visited every old base his PDA could point out to him, but Bart Torgal had never found the cure.

\--~~--

Sometimes, Ryley skims over the Redgrass plateau and into the mushroom forest, all the way to the end, where he can sit on the ocean floor beside his Seamoth and listen to the reaper’s screams. Jelly rays glide curiously around him, and he can occasionally spot a bone shark roaming between the mushroom trunks far to his left.

Sometimes, he thinks it would be better to simply release himself to the jaws of the reaper. It would be a much swifter end.

\--~~--

Ryley is quiet. The ocean is not. He wonders if there’s any breath left in his lungs at all.

\--~~--

On the dawn of the tenth week, Ryley’s radio crackles to life with a sound so alien that he nearly throws himself from the habitat (and isn’t it ironic, how the sounds of Alterra are the foreign ones now?).

_”Aurora, can you hear me? Come in.”_

The radio goes static for a moment, and Ryley strains, desperate and yearning, towards it—

_”This is Captain Avery Quinn of the Sunbeam, Aurora, come in. Your distress signal was lost in translation, and we were trapped in interstellar for a while, but if you still need help, we’re on our way now.”_

A pause, and some muttering.

_”—damn Alterra ships, bad systems, they call for help, you pick up, they don’t answer. Whatever. Aurora, we should be in reach of 4546B within… oh, three days or so. We’ll send landing coordinates when we can find a place for it. Sunbeam out.”_

And Ryley is trembling, opens his mouth to laugh, or cry, or scream, something, _anything_ — but the waves had stolen his voice long ago and the infection has taken the rest, and he is silent.

He has to prepare. Drifting for so long without a purpose has made him complacent, uncaring, but at last he has a reason to _live_.

\--~~--

Helpful as always, his PDA has displayed an approximate countdown timer for Ryley to keep an eye on while he hunts for food and water and supplies. He doesn’t know what he’ll need for the Sunbeam’s arrival, doesn’t know where they’ll choose to land, but he won’t ruin this single, precious chance by failing to anticipate every possibility.

He has a moonpool now, where he docks his Seamoth or his PRAWN, whichever needs the charge more. There’s a bioreactor and a garden in one room, a water filter in another, and a whole compartment that Ryley has dedicated as his bedroom.

So much construction, so much… comfort, really, for such an unforgivingly harsh world. Why has he tried so hard when his only options were ever to die or leave?

Still, he can lay down in a soft (mostly soft, anyway, Alterra’s first priority has never been the happiness of its people) bed during the night, rest his burning eyes in snatches of sleep interrupted by bottomless, watery dreams. And the plants had cheered him considerably, at least when he’d first gotten them.

The Sunbeam is coming. It will be enough. It has to.

\--~~--

And then Ryley is running, _sprinting_ desperately through the ominous, glowing halls of an alien fortress, his breath carving chunks from his lungs as he wheezes, the first sound he’s made in months, bursting out into the fading sunlight and onto the beach.

He’d mindless of the seeping pustules on his hands as he digs into the sand— he has no time to lay rocks— only to scrape deep into the ground the only message that matters now.

_RUN_

But the Sunbeam is here, so close that Ryley’s PDA can pick up the transmissions, and the captain is saying something relieved about survivors, about _him_ , and Ryley can only empty his final breath into the soaring sky, on his knees (when had that happened?) and begging for a scrap of mercy from the universe.

The universe, Ryley knows full well, has never listened.

Then he is blinded by shining green and brilliant fire that blends with the red, blood red, of the sunset, and Ryley is falling and falling and falling.

The Sunbeam was much smaller and much closer than the Aurora was when she was hit, and there was certainly no main wreck left behind. But Ryley leaps into his Seamoth anyway, his final flicker of hope burned out (only it must not be, because if so, why is he bothering to look?), and plunges into the depths, to the final resting place of the Sunbeam.

\--~~--

Ryley is deep in the bulb zone when his PDA finally pings with a sign of life. He sees a bone shark ahead and instead of dodging and hiding like he might’ve in the past, he presses the acceleration as far as it will go and simply outstrips his attacker. It is a reckless, desperate move, and if he dies, whoever has survived will only end up the same as him, but Ryley cannot care, not right now, not while there’s even the slightest chance someone else will make it out alive.

The lifepod, a different shape and color from the one Ryley had landed in but still instantly recognizable, has landed in a dip in the rocks just out of sight of the sharks. Perhaps _this_ is the universe’s cruel, luckless answer to his prayer for mercy.

Drawing his Seamoth alongside, Ryley slips out to bang on the clouded glass of the hatch. A face swims into view, but its features are impossible to make out.

This particular spot is four hundred meters below the surface, and if this person has no air tank or rebreather, their oxygen will be gone even before the sharks can get them. In an emergency, the Seamoth could fit one small-ish person behind the pilot’s seat, but it will make the craft much slower. And in a biome of swift, hungry predators, speed is the difference between life and death. But what other option is there?

The lifepod hatch opens and Ryley yanks the person (a man, he has just enough time to register) up and out before immediately stuffing him into the Seamoth. The man is still spluttering and coughing when Ryley squeezes into his seat, and then they’re off.

He guns for the surface without hesitation. It’s still night, and therefore more dangerous, but the bone sharks are still less likely to follow him up. Ryley hopes.

“Are you the Aurora survivor?” The man wheezes.

Ryley barely even registers the question, too intent on the roars at his tail and the glimmer of moonlight above him. Once his HUD informs him that he’s only a few meters under, Ryley levels out and skims toward home. And it is home now, he supposes. With three ships lost to this planet now, he knows Alterra will not be making another attempt.

The roars fade at last, and Ryley eases up on the accelerator. If his internal map and the low groans of the reefbacks are any indication, he’s safely over the plateau.

He’s breathing hard with the adrenaline rush, but even his gasps are silent. The man doesn’t speak again, and Ryley settles into the hazy calm of straight-line piloting.

\--~~--

Back at the base, the man asks a lot of questions, about what happened and where his crew is and how Ryley is alive, but Ryley does not, _cannot_ answer. His thoughts are jumbled, flickering and swirling like the lights of the ocean. All he can do is point out the fabricator and med-kits and storage room, then drop the man into his own bed.

It turns out this is Captain Avery Quinn, and Ryley had known the moment the man spoke, but his brain had refused to process that until it was said outright. There is something terribly ironic about it all; that of the Sunbeam’s crew, the only person whose voice Ryley had heard is the only person who has survived.

And he knows Captain Quinn is the only survivor.

Ryley watches it all as if through glass, as the clearly exhausted and shaken Captain drifts off to sleep. Ryley is shaking too. Even if it was through his dive suit, pulling the man into his Seamoth was the first human contact he’s had in months.

There is so much to do now, and the preparations Ryley had made for the Sunbeam’s arrival (it feels like an eon ago, now) will not be enough for two. He must search for salt deposits and catch fish, perhaps build another filtration machine, find material for another dive suit, another seaglide, another set of tools.

Laying a cured peeper and a water on the desk beside his bed, Ryley allows himself a moment to stare at the Captain’s shadowed face, the high brow and sharp nose and thin lips. It looks wrong now, and god, it’s only been a few months, but he’s already forgotten human features, his _own_ features, distorted as they always are by the rippling waves.

He has glass in abundance, but there is no mirror programmed into the Alterra survival pack.

\--~~--

Avery wakes to the sound of water, and not the cheerful trickle of the zen waterfall he keeps in his cabin, but the immutable song of the deep, where every noise is both muffled and impossibly amplified, and you feel like you might never surface again.

He opens his eyes. Takes in the bare roof and wall planters and windows that display the reef beyond. Closes them again.

The Sunbeam is gone, and his crew with it. Even if any of them are left alive, he has no means of searching for them, at least in a way that will keep him alive as well. All he has now is the ghost of a man who rescued him.

Avery remembers the man’s sunken cheeks and glassy eyes, the way his hands shook and flinched but had never faltered, the shock of bleached hair that might once have been dyed blue. And the silence.

He’s never been more grateful for his captain’s training. Drawing calm and clarity around himself like a cloak is second nature now.

Carefully, he rolls out of bed— he’s a little banged up from the lifepod landing, but nothing serious— and spots the food and water sitting on the desk beside him.

The fish is very salty, and the texture of what Avery is pretty sure is a giant eyeball is strange, but he finishes the meal without complaint and goes in search of his fellow survivor.

\--~~--

When Ryley slips into the habitat just before sunset, he is immediately met by the stern face of Captain Quinn, and he freezes.

Now that his head is not clouded by panic and loss after loss, Ryley can finally _think_. He almost wishes he couldn’t.

“Hello,” Captain Quinn says. “You remember me, right?”

Of course he does, it would be impossible to forget. But Ryley hasn’t said a word, so of course the Captain can’t know that.

Bending his head awkwardly in a nod (how long has it been since he made such a gesture?), Ryley pulls out his PDA and offers it up. Hopefully, Captain Quinn will take the hint and perform a data transfer so he, too, can have survival notes and blueprints— and Ryley’s identification card.

The Captain’s face brightens, and if he could, Ryley would’ve sighed in relief. PDAs lock together, and Ryley waits, looking just to the left of Captain Quinn’s face. It’s too unsettling to see intelligent eyes.

At last the PDAs ping, and Ryley’s is back in his hand. He still waits, still watches as the Captain flicks through the flood of new information he’s received.

“Ryley… Robinson? Non-essential systems manager on the Aurora?”

Ryley nods again. That position is a distant dream now. It was a perfect job for him, his friends had always said. Capable enough to lead a department, not so important as to do anything truly vital. Comfortable and safe.

Captain Quinn is speaking again.

“Well. I wish it had been under different circumstances, but it’s good to meet you, Ryley. Feel free to call me Avery.”

Ryley opens his mouth, hoping against hope that he will be able to respond now that he has this vibrant, _loud_ human standing before him. But the ocean has stolen everything that he might once have called his own.

Quietly, he turns instead to unload the material he has collected. It’s muscle memory by now to flit between the fabricator and mod station and storage lockers. One by one, he piles the necessities into Avery’s arms. Oxygen tank. Rebreather. Fins. Reinforced dive suit. Food and water. Scanner, repair tool, flashlight, and seaglide. Batteries. Med-kits.

Avery takes it all without comment, though Ryley can feel the weight of some emotion— confusion, he’s pretty sure— settling on his shoulders.

If only Alterra tech had more than _voice memo_ software. Apparently, the designers didn’t think emergency mode would need a note function.

“Can you speak at all?”

The question Ryley has been dreading for no reason. Talking had been his _life_ on the Aurora, managing his department and serving other crew members. It hadn’t bothered him so much when he’d been alone, but now… Slowly, shamefully, he shakes his head. _No._

“I see.”

Ryley briefly dips out of the base to add another compartment—another bedroom—and reinforce the walls. Then he hands the habitat builder to Avery, gestures at the available materials, and crawls into bed. He’s been up for three sunsets now. Any longer without rest and his body becomes dangerously slow. His mind never seems to falter, these days.

Ryley is asleep the moment his head hits the pillow.

\--~~--

Avery finishes scanning a bed and desk and wall locker into existence, then creeps into the other bedroom to study Ryley’s face. He looks so far removed from the ID picture in his Alterra profile. There, he was smiling, eyes a little tired, maybe—and who isn’t, out in space?— but approachable, _alive_.

Here, he’s a skeleton, with darkened eyes that flicker everywhere but Avery’s face, always alert and fearful. Avery’d been right, Ryley’s hair had been blue, and gelled into a spike, but now it’s washed out with salt and fanned stiffly over the pillow it lies on.

Ryley barely breathes in his sleep, doesn’t snore, doesn’t shuffle. There’s something deeply miserable about the whole sight, and Avery can’t help but wonder if this is his future too. If his calculations are right, Ryley has been here a little over two and a half months. That’s _nothing_ , especially for interstellar travelers, yet he’s already like this.

He should try and find a way to communicate with Ryley in the morning.

\--~~--

Ryley leaves at dawn, as he always does after a rest. Daylight is too valuable to waste even a second. 

He should stay, he knows, but the thought of facing Avery again, of guiding him through 4546B and failing to answer his questions is much the same as the thought of facing a warper; and so he goes.

Today he plans to go deep, all the way down to the blood kelp where his PDA indicates CTO Yu’s lifepod had crashed. She’s dead now, lost with Second Officer Keen, but Ryley knows there are different valuables preserved in every pod, and though his stomach heaves at the thought of exploiting the deaths of his crewmates, the blueprints contained in the pods have saved his life many times.

It’s the last lifepod that had made it off the Aurora.

The ghostly kelp sings into the void as Ryley glides between the stalks. Ampeels crackle in dizzying displays alongside, and even in the Seamoth he can feel his hair standing up on end.

Lifepod 2 is a wreck, just as expected, and Ryley jumps out into the crushing water, collects blueprints and abandoned PDAs, and returns to the relative safety of his Seamoth as swiftly as he can. He’s gotten quite good at navigating in and out of the Seamoth hatch over the months.

There are no tears as he listens to the last words of CTO Yu he will ever hear, but his heart is already gone, strewn over the rocky, glowing sea floor.

His vision blurs, and he blinks hard, refusing to waste water so far from home, but the haze only worsens.

Then there are brilliant eyes that pierce through to his soul, and a heavy touch in his mind, and a voice that is the chorus of the ocean in the fragile, feeble channel of his thoughts.

_“Come… to me…”_

He dives unerringly for the looming maw on his left, plunging past bloodroot and rocky spires until he emerges into a foggy green cavern that echoes with distant screams.

Every instinct is begging him to stop, turn back, but She has called. Who is Ryley to deny Her?

Everything is transparent here, from the boney eel-like creatures to the rays to the massive, luminescent leviathan that winds its way among the trees. She has called, but Ryley can still stay low, skimming along the walls.

A ping of sonar reveals a pit that Ryley knows he must descend, but his Seamoth is groaning and sparking, and She loses Her hold over him in the face of certain death, and Ryley is running, running as fast as his ship will allow all over again.

The leviathan shrieks its fury at Ryley’s flight, but it never comes close, and he’s out of the cave, out of the blood kelp, past the floating islands. Her voice still rings in his ears.

He’s coughing as he eases into the darkened shallows, for no apparent reason, save the ever-multiplying blisters that litter his body and fill his lungs. Specks of blood soak into the fabric of his dive suit.

Practically throwing himself from the Seamoth and into the base, Ryley fumbles for his scanner.

“Where have you been?” Avery shouts, but Ryley barely hears him.

He presses the trigger and watches dully as the scan light scatters over his body. 

_Infected_ , says the little display, and Ryley wants to scream.

 _”Scans indicate that deeper zones contain higher percentages of bacteria.”_ His PDA informs him helpfully. _”Infection growth rates have been accelerated. Symptoms include: coughing and lung tissue damage, toxic pustules on skin, fever, lethargy, and reduced immune system efficiency.”_

Collapsing to his knees, Ryley rips off his gloves, hears Avery’s gasp. The blisters have swelled enormously since he last checked them, and his skin around them is numb. He is numb. Ryley tilts his head back in a silent, empty laugh. He glows just as much as the creatures of this planet, now.

Again, he coughs, and again, blood speckles the floor.

A jingle of movement demands his attention, and Ryley looks up, and meets Avery’s eyes for the first time. They’re blue, just as clear and deep as the ocean that forever surrounds them.

Avery’s thumbs are on his cheeks all of a sudden, and Ryley flinches, but he’s only wiping away tears, and Ryley is weeping but there’s no way to stop it, and he’s home anyhow, with all the water he could possibly need, and it’s been so long, _so long_ since he’s been touched like this, even before the crash—

He cries until the world is nothing more than a smudge of existence and Avery’s blue, blue eyes.

Avery carries him to bed.

\--~~--

What is there to say, in the face of suffering like this?

Ryley might have survived the Aurora’s destruction, but it seems his fate was sealed the moment he stepped foot on this planet. Their fates.

He tears his gaze from Ryley’s sleeping, pain-twisted face and picks up the scanner, aims it at his own arm. It only takes a few seconds. _Normal_ , blinks the cheerful green message, and Avery lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. How long he’s safe for, though…

 _Deeper zones_ , the PDA had said. He wonders where Ryley had gone, what had occupied an entire day. He wishes Ryley would stick around, just for a morning, even, to show Avery what to do, then hates himself for wishing that because clearly Ryley had had to figure it out all on his own, and he apparently spends his days searching for an escape. Of what kind, Avery isn’t sure.

At the very least, he has the shallow reef figured out, so Avery exits the habitat to catch a few fish and maybe find more mineral outcrops to add to their supply. Ryley might be hungry when he wakes.

\--

When Avery walks in with his offering of cooked peeper and hoopfish, Ryley is up, sitting slumped against the headboard and watching him.

He starting to get used to Ryley’s unsettling stare and unnerving silence, so he goes straight to Ryley’s side.

“I’m not sure what your favorite meal is of the admittedly-limited choices we have around here, but you left me a peeper last time, so I’ve brought you another. Or you can take the hoopfish if you prefer that.” Avery’s babbling a little, but he can’t help it.

Ryley blinks slowly at him before taking the Peeper. Avery blows out a relieved breath.

“Also, I know you’re busy, and… hurting…. But if you’d be willing to take a couple of hours to just show me the ropes of survival on 4546B, I’d be very grateful.” He has to ask.

There’s a long pause. Avery takes a bite of the hoopfish. It’s… acceptable.

At last, Ryley nods. Thank god.

“Need anything else?”

Ryley shakes his head. Creases his brow. Nods.

“What is it?” Avery asks as kindly as he can, and Ryley extends a hand to him.

Raising an eyebrow, he takes it and settles down at Ryley’s side. Avery has seen nastier things than glowing green blisters during his time as a ship captain, but still, he’s guiltily glad that Ryley has left the gloves on.

He waits for something more to happen, but Ryley just stays there, holding Avery’s hand with his eyes closed, looking perhaps the most relaxed Avery has ever seen him. Well… he can get behind that. Gently, cautiously, Avery threads his bare fingers into Ryley’s hair, and Ryley immediately goes boneless, sliding down to rest against Avery’s shoulder. And Avery has only been here for two and a half days, but this simple touch already feels like something he won’t be able to live without.

They sit there for a long time, absorbing each other’s presence and breathing the weight of the ocean.

\--~~--

Ryley wakes feeling… untethered, buzzed, as if he’d downed a dozen cups of coffee in single sitting. He’d spent nearly the whole night with his hand in Avery’s, and even with gloves on, it had been wonderfully gentle. Avery had filled the silence with murmured tales of his adventures on the Sunbeam, and Ryley could hear the pain in his voice, but it had been all too easy to slip into his orbit, and Ryley hadn’t had the willpower to stop him.

Now, Ryley smooths back Avery’s sleep-disheveled hair, memorizing his features before returning to the storage room. Her voice still echoes in the back of his head. He needs to go deeper.

Titanium and lithium he has in abundance, but he’s short a ruby. The deep Sparse Reef will be safest.

Reluctantly, Ryley returns to wake Avery from his peaceful rest. Even though fleeing Avery had been his first priority just yesterday, now Ryley can’t stand the thought of being parted from him.

It’s easy enough to build a second Seamoth.

“Oh… ‘mornin,” Avery rasps when Ryley shakes him.

There’s a shadow of stubble on his chin now that pairs well with the strong lines of his face.

Impulsively, Ryley darts in to press a kiss to Avery’s cheek. He receives a startled blink from blue eyes still watery with sleep, but Avery doesn’t push him away or seem very disgusted at all.

“I don’t suppose there’s anything besides weird alien fish for breakfast?” Is the only thing he asks, and Ryley can actually oblige him, this time. The marblemelons are ripe, and he fetches two of them, hacking away with his survival knife until they split, sweet and juicy all over his hands.

It gives Ryley a thrill of satisfaction to see Avery so pleased. It’s the one good thing he has left.

The sun is already high in the sky by the time they leave, but somehow, with Avery at his side, the loss of time doesn’t bother Ryley so much.

\--~~--

Avery takes to ocean survival much faster than Ryley did. Perhaps it’s a difference in training, or his disposition as a captain, or maybe he just likes the water. But whatever it is, it has him out and about in the shallows, gliding in the Seamoth over the Redgrass plateau, and carefully navigating the creepvine forests while Ryley fabricates Seamoth depth modules and supplies for deep exploration.

This mission is almost certainly suicide. But what does he—they—have left to lose? Besides, She is waiting, and Ryley knows he won’t be able to ignore Her for long.

Night has again fallen by the time Ryley finishes his work and Avery returns from the sea. By unspoken agreement, they both go straight to Ryley’s bed, tucking themselves into the cold, synthetic sheets and curling into each other. Ryley bumps his forehead against Avery’s.

The ocean’s song, the one that has replaced Ryley’s voice and lingers in his thoughts, now rings faintly from Avery as well. It seems even a single day surrounded by the echoing depths is all it takes to be drawn into the planet’s inexorable force.

\--

“Where are we going?” Avery asks in the morning as Ryley prepares their Seamoths.

Avery asks a lot of things Ryley can’t answer. Still, he pulls out his PDA and flicks to the entry on the Blood Kelp Zone, even if it explains nothing about Her.

Avery shudders, but climbs into his Seamoth without hesitation. Ryley leads, guiding Avery with the universal hand signals that Alterra had taught him, since their ships don’t have communication systems and Ryley can’t talk anyway.

Diving into the void, surrounded only by flickering lights and distant screams is always a chilling, breathtaking experience. Ryley can feel every throb of his heartbeat, every thin gasp of air in his ruined lungs.

The luminous spines of blood kelp seem to rise from the dark, and the water _sings_.

Back into the cave, back through the acid cavern. The leviathan that his PDA identifies as “Ghost” makes a pass at his Seamoth, and Ryley tastes blood on his lips and teeth as he wrests control back— but his Seamoth is sparking and grinding and still running, so he forces it onward.

He drops down into the pit without hesitation. It’s almost peaceful there, surrounded by smooth rock and toxic flows, bottomed by the blue glow from the river trees.

Ryley unhooks his repair tool, leaves his Seamoth. Avery pulls up beside him, looking no worse for the wear, and maybe the universe does have some blessings left.

Neither of them can speak like this, but Avery softly touches the face of Ryley’s mask, his eyes pinched and frowning. Ryley’s lungs choose that moment to convulse, and he sees dark speckles land in his vision, and oh, it must by the blood that Avery is worried about.

They carry on. Ryley pauses here and there, wherever he can snatch a moment of safety, to scan the flora and fauna around him. Every bit of knowledge increases their chances of survival.

Another cave opens up on the left, filled with a cold cerulean glow and a massive tree that shimmers with color and nests several milky orbs. It’s eerie, haunting, irresistible— Ryley cannot breathe, looking at it, and he passes it by.

Alien pillars guide him and Avery down a narrow passage and into the remains of a cube fortress. Warpers stalk their every move, but they manage to slip inside without injury.

Then he sees the terrible remains of dragons trapped for a thousand years, the organs of creatures shocked and cut and twisted into new, _familiar_ form, scans himself and hears “Kharaa,” and wonders at the desperate cruelty of the Precursors, at how they are indistinguishable from humans at times like these.

And Ryley tucks himself against Avery’s chest, feeling the warmth through the protective layer of his suit even as his oxygen ticks away.

 _”OK?”_ Avery signs, and Ryley signs it back even though nothing, nothing is okay.

His vision shoots through with technicolor, and the piercing eyes and fathomless voice are back.

 _”I am waiting,”_ She says.

And despite the shivering ache of infection in his limbs, Ryley takes Avery’s hand and drags them on.


	2. Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trash: the sequel you've maybe been waiting for
> 
> the Emperor LIVES because i LOVE HER, that is all

They leave the Research Facility, and now there is nothing to divert Ryley from the pull of that shining blue cove. It’s deep—dangerously deep—and his Seamoth groans its protest as Ryley skims just above the crush limit.

His PDA pings, _human life signs detected._

The thrum of a nearby thermal reactor is loud, and has his hearing been getting sharper? But there is no time to ponder it. Ryley leaps from his Seamoth, hears Avery do the same, and plunges those extra meters down and down to the small habitat clustered at the base of a smoking vent.

He doesn’t even stop to wonder if it’s safe, if whoever has somehow survived down here will welcome guests; for the song of the abyss echoes here the same as it does from Ryley’s own heart, only greater and more magnificent, a choir instead of a lone warble.

Wrenching open the stiff hatch, Ryley tumbles inside, straight into a stranger’s arms, and their songs swell together. He doesn’t even have to look to know that this is somehow, impossibly, _Bart Torgal_ , at home in the depths of the Lost River.

They’ve met two seconds ago, but they’ve known each other for a millennium, and Ryley is wrapped in a strong embrace that he returns with equal enthusiasm.

He turns to look back at Avery, but the man is already beside them, hovering as though uncertain. Avery’s song is still weak, barely a chime in the flood, but Ryley and Bart welcome him in, and suddenly the three of them are on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. Ryley tears off his mask, dropping it roughly to the side and leaning in so their breaths can mingle.

It is a single moment of heaven in the dark.

He is thrust back into reality when his hands give a painful spasm. Slowly, they all pull away from each other, wide-eyed and wondering.

Bart has a dive suit on, but his feet and hands are bare. And under the revealed skin? He _glows_ , with golden veins and iridescent eyes. Small, shiny circles dot his skin in the same pattern as the giant green pustules mark Ryley.

“How… who _are_ you?” murmurs Avery, and of course he doesn’t know, _can’t_ know when the song of the sea doesn’t ring in his ears.

Ryley moves to open his PDA, but Bart breathes, his voice less than a whisper.

“Bart… Torgal. It’s been… so long.”

If Avery’s eyes were wide before, they’re now bugging out of his head, and Ryley knows he’d listened to all the data he’d been given, including Bart’s logs.

“What— it’s been,” Avery pauses, calculating, “almost ten years! How the hell did you survive?”

Bart gives a laugh that’s really more of a wheeze. When he speaks, it is slow and rough. “Many… things. And yet… nothing at all.”

_She wanted me to live_ , says his song.

Avery shakes his head, the disbelief clear on his face. “I’ve only been here for four, five days, and without Ryley here I think I would’ve gone crazy. Ten _years_ alone, god…. And what about the infection?” His gaze flicks from Bart’s feet to hands to eyes. “Did you cure it?”

“Not quite,” Bart says, but he doesn’t elaborate. “Did you… crash?”

Avery grimaces. “Yeah. I was the captain of the Sunbeam, answering a distress call from the Aurora—that’s Ryley’s ship—but when we got close, a huge energy surge just…” He waves his hand vaguely, but they know what happened.

Bart bends his head, places a hand on Avery’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, for… all that has happened to you.” Then he sighs, almost wistfully. “Your song… is so new. Has the Kharaa taken hold?”

“Not when I last checked, but it’s been few days.” Avery frowns, and picks up the scanner. Red, red, red. _Infected_ , declares the scanner, and it’s not even his fate sealed, but Ryley slumps at the sight.

“Oh,” says Avery.

They’re all silent after that. Bart beckons them to the next room, and with nothing better to do, they follow.

\--

The days slip by down there, languid and hazy as the Lost River itself.

Bart shows them his research; shows them the unstable enzyme he collects from peepers, tells them that he used it as a last ditch effort and that he was lucky to survive the transformation. It does not kill the Kharaa, only halts its progress, mutating genes of its own to keep the user alive.

Bart runs tests on Ryley, to see if the peeper’s enzyme could help him too. The skin where the enzyme was dabbed on turns red, not gold, and burns his flesh. The rest of the day is subdued.

It turns out that Bart is trapped here, by the lack of basic supplies and vehicles, by the many predators of the River, and by his own illness-ravaged body. His base is slowly falling apart, his dive equipment is long broken, and he lives day to day on bladderfish and gel sacks and whatever peepers and other small creatures he can scavenge from his regular visits to an alien vent.

So Ryley takes his habit builder and offers Bart the repair tool, and they spend unknown hours expanding and fixing the habitat. They’re lacking many surface materials, but the base is already much more livable.

Ryley had gasped out a soundless scream when he’d first seen Bart leave the habitat without air tanks. Bart tells him that he can hold his breath for nearly an hour now if he doesn’t move much, fifteen minutes or so if he does. Whether it’s a result of the enzyme mutations or simply the ocean itself, he doesn’t know.

Whatever the cause, it had kept him alive the last time his equipment had failed.

There are no ‘mornings’ and ‘nights’ now, so they sleep when they’re tired and eat when they’re hungry. Avery needs the most sustenance, with a body that has neither starved nor adapted to the ocean, and Ryley and Bart happily feed him whatever they don’t eat. After all, Ryley has been on a skeleton diet for so long he no longer knows the meaning of ‘full,’ and Bart drinks plenty of water but eats next to nothing.

They make a strange trio, the three of them. 

The planet never had the chance to claim Avery’s voice and he takes full advantage, chattering and sighing and groaning and laughing into every silence. Bart responds in short, but not displeased whispers, and Ryley soaks up every sound, hoping that if he listens long enough, they’ll take up new residence in his own throat.

Bart has _knowledge_ , his cybernetic implant serving him well when it comes to memorizing and processing. They (or Avery, at least) have yet to come across a question about 4546B that Bart couldn’t answer, save for Ryley’s cure.

And Ryley? He’s survived, yes, but Bart has done that as well, and better; and his people skills are good, he can entertain, but since he lacks a voice, he cedes that position to Avery.

Instead, it seems he’s become a… bridge, or an anchor, maybe. He is the middle note in their song, connecting Avery’s faint strain and Bart’s overwhelming roar. When they sleep, they all gather in one bed with Ryley in the center, and Avery puts his hand in Ryley’s hair and Bart lays his arm over Ryley’s stomach (because they can no longer touch his limbs), simply taking comfort in each other.

He’s been deprived for so long that touch is always too much and not enough, burning over his skin and grounding his mind. Bart, too, is feeling the lack, perhaps even more so than Ryley, and his song always pitches when they curl up together.

None of them can sleep alone anymore.

Their safe and comfortable routine is broken when Ryley wakes up one day with a blazing fever and vomiting blood.

Their parting, if it can be even called that, is brief. They are never truly apart anymore, not in this ocean. Ryley accepts the kiss Bart presses to his burning forehead. He and Avery return to the surface.

\--

Even moving is difficult, now, but Ryley will not let his body fail. There are materials to fabricate, seeds to gather, and most importantly—a Cyclops to construct. There had been no reason to make it before, but if he is to go deeper, to Her, then he will need new transport.

Ryley shivers through the fire under his skin, and Avery rarely parts from his side, even in the habitat. It’s horribly inefficient, but Ryley is grateful.

Slowly, the base empties and the Cyclops fills. Ideally, there should be three people to manage this ship, but he and Avery will have to make do until they can reach Bart again.

On the last night before they return, Ryley lies in bed with his nose in Avery’s collarbone and Avery’s arms around him. She has been walking in his dreams lately, and Ryley doesn’t want to sleep.

“We’ll find the cure,” Avery whispers into his ear. “We will.”

It’s an empty, empty promise, but Ryley kisses him anyway, tries not to cough. Their lips are chapped and salt-cracked, and Ryley only draws away when sleep takes over.

\--~~--

The rumble of some great engine alerts Bart to Ryley and Avery’s return.

He’d been alone for a decade and had been certain he could manage for a few days longer. But they have ruined him, and he is bereft without touch, without Avery’s voice and Ryley’s song. Impatience takes over, and Bart sees no reason sit here and wait for even a second longer. He swims out to meet the submarine.

The exterior looks a little banged up, with long scrapes and bubbles seeping from the cracks. But Ryley and Avery appear one by one from the hatch, and Bart can breathe easy (or he would, if he wasn’t underwater).

Not even a second later, he realizes that something _is_ wrong, that Avery is practically carrying a limp Ryley through the water. They slip into the habitat and Bart waits for Avery to unseal his and Ryley’s masks before asking, “Will he live?”

Because that’s the only question that really matters now, in this world of a thousand ways to die.

( _I won’t_ let _you die_ , he sings)

“It’s the infection,” Avery chokes out. “He was fine until the Lost River, and then he just—”

A sound that could be a sob, could be a scream escapes from Avery’s throat, and all Bart can do is wait. He’s good at it, by now.

“I got us past the Ghost, barely, and I could’ve done better but Ryley was seizing up, and I panicked, and—” he looks wretched. “Starship captain for five years, and I’ve never panicked like that before.”

Ryley chooses that moment to convulse in their arms, and then the only thing that either of them can focus on is wiping blood from his lips and the floor, and Avery gently pinning Ryley’s thrashing limbs while Bart prepares another numbing salve for the pustules.

(It’s useless, he knows, but if he doesn’t do _something_ for his precious person, he will truly go insane.)

\--

“We should unpack the Cyclops,” Avery says.

Ryley breathing has finally eased into the slow wheeze of true unconsciousness, but Bart is still loath to leave him.

“If… we must.”

Every whispered word makes his ruined lungs ache, but Avery’s haunted eyes (haunted, because they are still _his_ and not the ocean’s) light up every time and trying to stop is a futile endeavor.

They go hand in hand, because they _can_ without the agony of the Kharaa bursting through their skin. He has working oxygen tanks again, but Bart doesn’t bother using them for short trips like these.

It doesn’t take long for them to move the essentials. Avery laughs, a ringing, joyful sound when Bart claims the planter and refuses to budge from the soft rustle of greenery. The plants and skyrays had been his only friends during his long fade on the island when the Kharaa had ravaged his body. It’s nice to have at least one of them back.

Then they return to bed with Ryley, lying on either side, and Avery doesn’t speak this night but traces over the golden remains of infection on Bart’s skin.

Touch is still burning, heady; but Bart will take it every chance he can get.

\--

The base still needs to be upgraded with the materials Ryley and Avery brought down, and even though Bart doesn’t need to breathe (much), Avery is stronger, so after a brief argument, he goes out with the tools while Bart stays inside to watch over Ryley.

He smooths his hand over Ryley’s hair and cheeks and neck, attuning his song as best he can to Ryley’s own. Ryley is awake now, and mostly coherent, but Bart knows intimately the way the Kharaa drags at your bones and digs its claws into your brain.

Though he never makes sounds beyond tiny gasps and wheezes (and Bart can hear it in his song, how without any time to adjust the ocean had swallowed Ryley whole), it’s still easy enough to figure out what Ryley needs, even if it’s nowhere near as easy to actually _help_.

Ryley clings to him despite the seeping blisters of his fingers, and Bart holds him tighter, and wishes.

The illness has left Ryley weak and _open_ , and Bart cannot help but listen to every note of his song. When it is done, when Ryley has unknowingly laid himself bare and Bart has listened and listened and committed every nuance to memory because anything less would be sacrilege, he leaves soft kisses over Ryley’s forehead and cheeks and even hands and arms as if they could draw away the pain.

Avery has returned, and somehow Ryley’s story has given Bart the urge to share too. He tells Avery bits and pieces of his time here, in space, on earth, forcing the words from his lungs and throat. In return, Avery shares tales from his time as a captain, as a cadet, and even the handful of things he’s experienced on 4546B, all in quiet murmurs that lull Bart to sleep.

\--~~--

“You _cannot_ be serious!” Avery bursts out, but Ryley knows, they all know, that there is no other choice.

The Cyclops is best when piloted by three, and Ryley can’t stay here alone.

They must go deeper.

“Ryley, please, at least leave the work to us,” Avery is practically begging now. “There’s a bed on the bridge, and it might be a little rough, but Bart and I can do it. You can barely even stand!”

The reminder is unnecessary when every movement tips the world sideways and his body could probably thermally charge the Cyclops and Bart hovers at his side to wipe away the blood that leaks from between his lips.

But even though Bart sees Her in his dreams, it is Ryley She has called, and he will go. 

The Cyclops takes them unflinchingly down, until the water ripples red and warpers drift past, menacing and unseeing.

They slink onward until new roars echo through the thick walls of their ship and towers of blue crystal sprout from the ground. It’s Avery—always Avery now—who takes the PRAWN suit to gather the supplies they’ll need to go deeper.

“We’re already well over a thousand meters down,” Avery had said nervously, “are you sure?”

But Her voice lives in Ryley’s head, and Bart’s too, and they know.

They get waylaid by a lava castle marked by alien lights, and despite Bart and Avery’s protests, Ryley goes too. 

He finds another tablet—blue, this time, with energy that sizzles on his aching fingers, and the Precursor’s source of power. They make their scans and take what they need and run.

It’s hard to breathe in the excruciating heat of the lava zone, even with the reinforced dive suits.

\--

The great dragon, though it roars and sprays underwater fire at every opportunity, seems little interested in their group, or else hasn’t noticed them; and Her calls draw them forward, down into a crater lined by narrow tunnels.

Bart is the master here, in navigating the cracks of watery nightmares, so Ryley sits (leans, really) at Avery’s side and struggles to stay focused.

Slipping past the second leviathan is uneventful, if nerve-wracking, and Bart settles them in a niche beside the alien fortress. But now they must swim, or run in the PRAWN those last hundred meters, and if the thermal plant’s cavern was hot, this place is hell.

Ryley coughs again, he can’t help it, can’t _stop_ , and suddenly Bart and Avery’s faces are wavering above him, and they’re speaking but Ryley has no energy left to hear.

He’s not sure how they get into the facility, only knows the agony of Avery’s hand on him arm, the distant terror of fireballs raining down around them, the heat that outstrips his fever and renders him incapable of even the thought of motion.

Then he’s collapsing onto a ridged, blessedly cool floor, bathed in cold light. Hands—slim and strong and rough with scars—cup his face and massage his neck. Hot lips press against his, and Ryley swallows the water that floods into his mouth. His throat has been carved with a thousand knives.

In the corner of his eye, he sees a dark spot slowly spreading over the floor, covering up the faint lines of light. Ryley fades away.

\--~~--

Avery stares at Ryley’s limp form clutched in Bart’s arms, meets Bart’s desperate eyes.

“The Kharaa— I never got… quite this bad. We… have to hurry,” Bart rasps. He gently lowers Ryley beside the parked PRAWN, steps over the puddle of blood, and joins Avery in the search.

There are display cases on either side of the room with curious, even familiar objects that Avery has no time to inspect or wonder over. Maybe sometime later, when Ryley isn’t bleeding out from wounds they can’t touch.

A forcefield door dominates the wall directly across from the entrance, and a half a dozen smaller openings yaw into green-hued darkness. Avery turns to Bart to ask where they should look first, but Bart’s golden eyes are glassy all of a sudden, and Avery nearly falls apart right then and there.

He shakes Bart’s shoulders, hard. “No, no, you _can’t_ do this to me, we haven’t even cured Ryley yet!—”

But then Bart focuses again on his face, gently taking Avery’s hands in his grasp as he does. “Sorry… Avery, beloved. She was… speaking to me.”

And without hesitation, he turns to the forcefield door. Avery follows helplessly. Bart performs the now-familiar ritual of offering the tablet to the control box, and they walk through the gate to a large moonpool of cool, blue water, a sight so beautiful after the boiling water outside that Avery actually feels tears prick at his eyes.

“She’s… here.” Bart stares at Avery, wide-eyed and almost hazy. “Go get… Ryley.”

Avery runs, because he’s heard Bart’s faint whispers to Ryley of this “Her,” and he still doesn’t understand a thing. But it really doesn’t matter, as long as whatever it is can save his… he’s not sure what Ryley is to him, now.

Ryley is feather-light and burning hot and doesn’t so much as twitch when Avery picks him up. _Please, please._

Bart brushes a kiss over Ryley’s lips before replacing his mask, and does the same to Avery, only firmer, more searing— and they take the plunge, all together, into the water that tugs at Avery’s soul.

\--~~--

_”Are you here to play?”_

Her voice sounds like coming home, the resolution of his own drifting melody.

Ryley’s lips had somehow been even hotter than the rest of his body, like a brand against Bart’s own mouth, and it was a kiss of love and desperation, far removed from the soft, comforting things they’d all shared in the blue cove glow of his habitat.

_”Ahh. I see my chosen one is returning… oh, returning to the stars.”_

Avery stomps forward then, as well as he can on an underwater platform, uselessly yelling into the seal of his mask. But Bart knows what he’s saying anyway, when the same thing screams through his own song. _He is ours, ours and we will not let him go._

She regards them some ancient understanding. _”Others came here. They did not want to play. They trapped us here.”_

Bart trembles under the weight of her fathomless rage, leashed only by the mercy of the waves. (And the waves, he’s learned, have very little of that.)

_”But they are gone now, and instead, I have you. I now wish only for my children to roam free. Help me, and I will freely give you and yours what the others were… denied.”_

_But our beloved fades and there is no time._ Bart thrums with the intensity of his plea.

Her great head tilts, almost curiously. _”You do not belong here. You are all you have left.”_ A watery sigh, and Bart is already holding his breath. _”It is granted. My chosen shall not rise to the stars just yet.”_

She opens her mouth, and Bart sees Avery startle back, but he knows what must happen. He cannot touch Avery with his song, so instead he takes it upon himself to carefully lift Ryley from Avery’s grasp and deposit him on Her waiting tongue as if laying him on a bed of silk.

Avery grabs his arm, fearfully, Bart thinks, but Her mouth is already closed and Ryley gone, and a flood of instructions seep into Bart’s mind. He tugs Avery to the surface. If there was ever a time for speed, it is now.

\--~~--

When Ryley wakes, it is to perfect darkness and unusually clear thoughts. For a brief moment, he wonders if the Kharaa truly did take him, if he’s left Bart and Avery behind, but then he hears Her steady hum in the back of his mind and knows that wherever this is, he is safe.

As always, Her song is overwhelming when it pours into him, and Ryley feels as though he should be drowning. He never does.

_”Your beloved have gone to free my children. I have given you the blessing of the sea. Your time is not yet for the stars.”_

Ryley is weak, but his gratitude is not. _Thank you,_ he trills, _thank you for everything_

She makes no reply, but her satisfaction buoys him along in the dark.

Slowly, Ryley takes stock. He is oddly immobile and vaguely damp. His hands and feet no longer stab agony into his bones, he no longer feels as though he will shatter into pieces the moment Avery or Bart aren’t there to hold him together. He swallows without screaming. Strange pressure lingers in his ears and behind his eyes, but not so much as to worry him.

_Am I cured?_ Ryley wonders into the song.

_”No,”_ she sighs, _no, but I am alive and you are mine._

He is _not_ Hers, he is Avery’s and Bart’s, has given himself to them; but he is _of_ Her now, so Ryley lets it lie.

\--

Ryley knows Bart and Avery have returned when he tumbles out of the darkness (and oh, he was in Her mouth), and he throws his arms around them the moment he can reach. The dizziness and pain and heat are flooding back, but Ryley won’t waste a second of this precious clarity.

Avery’s garbled cry of joy mingles with the swell of Bart’s song, and Ryley drinks them both in for as long as he can before his aching limbs give out and he is tugged to the surface and laid on the deck.

The world goes hot and hazy with terrifying swiftness, but to Ryley it’s only a blink before Bart and Avery are back at his side. Her words, inaudible to Ryley, still thrum in the background.

“Stay with us, Ry,” Avery says, and Ryley can only nod.

Bart’s gentle hands remove his mask and carefully peel off his gloves, but Ryley flinches anyway because it _hurts_ , the thick fabric dragging over the fragile skin of the blisters. The dive suit is stripped away too, and it burns all over again, but it’s okay because they have the cure in their hands, and even if they didn’t, it’s _Bart_ and _Avery_ , and he trusts them more than he’s ever trusted himself.

Then he’s naked, and he should be panicking, or embarrassed maybe, but what’s the point when the only ones here are his beloved people and the Emperor Herself?

Avery and Bart work in perfect tandem, smoothing something cold and gel-like with excruciating care over every inch of Ryley’s body. He forces his hand up just high enough to see, blinks dimly at the golden glitter that layers his fingers—

“Enzyme 42,” Bart whispers.

It only takes minutes to work. Ryley’s fever drops so fast he’s left shivering, the green leeches out of his hands and arms, the room slams into stillness and the dizziness fades. A final, weak cough escapes his mouth, and no blood comes with it.

Ryley sits up.

Bart is sitting back on his heels with Avery just behind, and they’re both watching him with wide, desperately hopeful eyes.

“I think,” he slurs, just barely over a breath, “it worked.”

And suddenly two pairs of arms are squeezing tight around him, and it hurts a little, but Ryley gasps out wheezing laughs anyway because he’s alive and they’re here and even if the universe never grants his wishes ever again, this is enough.

Bart’s lips meet his, and Ryley flicks his tongue out over the salt that crusts them; and Avery is there to rub away Ryley’s tears just as gently as he did on that first day.

He breathes it all in. _Alive, alive, alive._

Ryley’s only halfway through tugging his dive suit back on when She calls, and he plunges in without hesitation despite Avery’s yelp. After all, She has given Ryley Her blessing, and he suspects Bart has had something of it for a long time now.

Sure enough, there is no water in his lungs, no crushing pressure of the deep, no ice over his bare skin. His vision is clear, clearer, even than on land, and the sounds of the ocean are sharp and sweet in his ears.

_”My children are free, and you are healed. There is no need for me to remain here.”_

Her gaze bores into Ryley’s soul.

_”Take all you will need, and go. My blessing will not save you from what is to come.”_

Her words have the weight of an apocalypse trumpet, so Ryley and Bart and Avery scoop up what remains of the enzyme and flee, pausing only for Ryley to enter the PRAWN before they’re out the gate and sliding along the fortress walls out of sight of the dragon.

They’re back in the Cyclops and nearly out of the cavern when a shrieking, thundering roar shakes the walls and nearly bursts Ryley’s eardrums, and the sea dragon responds with a rising howl of its own. None of them have to look back to know the facility is gone.

\--~~--

Ryley still doesn’t talk much, even though he can. But that’s okay, because Avery is more than happy to fill the silence, and now that Bart’s long-ruined lungs are healing, he is more talkative as well. Not that there’s all that many silences anyway, now that Avery can hear the songs.

The Emperor and Her children roam free, and She occasionally drifts by for a visit at their new base on the Redgrass plateau. The company is always welcome. Her children have yet to speak, but She assures them that they will only need some time. Given that She’s over a millennium old, Avery’s not so sure the three of them will live to see that time, but they still have each other, so it’s not so bad.

\--

He spends a lot of time now sitting on the surface reefbacks and looking up at the stars. Bart and Ryley have already made their decision, but they are… well, they’re children of the ocean now, blessed by the Emperor, and Avery’s pretty sure even if they did return to the federations, they would never fit in again. Avery, though, Avery came in last and suffered least, and he just doesn’t know.

They want him to stay, but he’s also certain that if he does choose the stars, they will let him go.

When he gets back to the habitat, Bart is still awake, sitting on the bed beside Ryley and quietly watching. It’s always sort of a shock for Avery, being over thirty himself, that Bart was only _nineteen_ when he was stranded here, and has had no human and very little sentient interaction since his crew members died. Yet Bart’s eyes speak of an age and wisdom even Avery doesn’t have.

He walks over and meets Bart’s soft kiss. They lie down, keeping Ryley in the middle (a habit none of them can break), and Bart asks the same question he always does.

“How were the stars?”

And Avery’s voice is just as rough every time. “Beautiful.”

\--~~--

The Emperor’s song has brought order to a torn and turbulent planet, and though it has been far too long since his days of naïve curiosity, it’s still thrilling to see the changes.

A great number of the creatures are less hostile now, at least to humans—although that’s no excuse to get relaxed and careless. The reaper and ghost leviathans are just as hungry and furious as ever, but most of the time it’s easy enough to avoid them.

Infected creatures no longer exist, of course, and the Emperor and Her children can regularly be spotted roaming the deep. Even plants are thriving. Portions of the creepvine forests are near unnavigable now.

\--

Bart made his decision long, long, before Ryley and Avery ever arrived. He had no way of leaving at the time, but even if he did, his answer would’ve been the same. 4546B is pristine and untouched as it will ever be, rich with resources and vibrant with life—just the sort of place Alterra (or any other part of the federations) would burn and dredge and murder their way through without hesitation.

He’s been here ten years, after all, and he’s even begun to feel protective of it.

\--

Spending his days with Avery and a healthy Ryley is bliss. A week or so into their recovery, after they’d all soaked up the sun and put themselves back together, Avery had awkwardly asked what they were, the three of them. It had never crossed Bart’s mind, and from the startled look on Ryley’s face, he hadn’t considered it either.

“Does it matter?” Bart had said.

“I… guess not,” Avery had replied, hesitant. “It’s just a residual need to classify this kind of thing from my time with humanity.” His voice had been wry.

“Then we will,” Bart had said immediately. “It will probably be good for us anyway.”

“If it matters to you, it matters to us,” Ryley had rasped.

It had easily been one of the strangest conversations Bart had ever had, not helped by his own lack of relationship experience and separation from the rest of humanity. But it had still been worth it.

Now, he leans into Ryley from where he’s tending to the garden boxes, and Ryley gives that little breathy sigh and laugh that Bart has come to adore, and they return to the bedroom together.

It’s not sex. Bart knows barely anything about… that, though of course he’s been given the Talk. He’d never had time, never been interested during his years training in space. And after 4546B, well. 

Ryley had cautiously told them he’d tried it twice—once with a woman and once with a man, and hadn’t really enjoyed it either time. But he’d insisted the intimacy with Bart and Avery was different, somehow, and Bart had just had to accept that.

Avery seemed sheepish when he’d revealed that he had plenty of experience, but only ever with women. He’d apparently been initially worried when the three of them had started getting closer, but when his feelings hadn’t changed, he’d just let it happen. Still, he hadn’t been sure about taking it any further.

So yes, sex is off the table. But Ryley still peels off his suit, waits for Bart to toss his shirt to the floor (Avery had made some modifications to the fabricator’s clothing options), and they curl up in bed together. Ryley’s skin is warm on his, and he drags his fingers through Ryley’s hair, and it is more than enough.

\--~~--

Ryley’s choice is not made lightly, but it is not terribly difficult to make either.

He has a sister back on earth, and they’ve never been close, but they do—did—care for each other. But in the face of Alterra’s looming greed, and the changes from the Emperor’s blessing, and the beauty of the planet and his love for Bart and Avery—he chooses, and he is satisfied.

\--

An interesting side-effect of the blessing is that stalkers no longer attack Ryley or Bart. None of them are sure why. The stalkers don’t seem particularly closely related to the Emperor, and none of the other predators have stopped coming after them. But it is what it is, and Ryley has taken to training one of them a lot like he would a dolphin back on earth—if dolphins were beady-eyed and fanged and capable of biting him in half in a snap.

\--

Bart enjoys exploration the most out of all of them, and although Ryley dearly wants to tour the wonderful, terrible Precursor bases more thoroughly, his body is still a little too weak from the Kharaa.

So, he spends a lot of time at home with Avery, listening to the reefbacks and dodging sand sharks in the relative shallows, or playing the games they’ve been able to scrape together with bits of rock and coral and charcoal, or just perching comfortably in Avery’s lap while he hums in his low rumble of a voice. Ryley and Bart can talk well enough now, but Avery’s the only one who can sing, properly, at least. Bart thinks it’s because the ocean’s song has become so much a part of them that any other music they try to make comes out wrong. Whatever it is, Ryley can still _listen_ , and so he does.

They never sleep apart. Sometimes one will fall asleep before the others, but never if they’re _alone_ , and sometimes two of them will wake up without the third, but it has become ritual, necessity really, to spend those precious hours in each other’s arms.

Ryley hooks his ankle around Avery’s leg, smiles at Bart’s sleeping face. Listens to the heavy rumble of the ocean, the faint call of the Emperor. His heart _sings_.

\--~~--

_What is a wave without the ocean?  
A beginning without an end?  
They are different, but they go together.  
Now you go among the stars, and I fall among the sand.  
We are different.  
But we go… together._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading my soft, existential ramblings! I had a lot of fun with it <3


End file.
